As you can see from actually reading what I wrote, China is far larger when looking at *land* area. This quiz, however, includes all inland bodies of water, which pushes the *total* area of the US up ahead of China (mostly thanks to the Great Lakes). So yes, I do know for a fact that China's land area is much larger than the United States', because it is a fact.

Actually even including inland water china is still bigger than the US some sources include territorial waters for the US but not for most other countries and that is what puts the US above China. If you include the same things for both countries china is bigger.

fair enough that USA counts the inland waters, as many countries do, China included - but the US also counts the coastal waters (no other country counts this). On top of that it also includes all sea territories, vast swathes of ocean well out in the Pacific and Atlantic. Read the smallprint in the CIA factbook/ website.
The reality is China 9,640,821km2, USA 9,526,468 km2.

If one quiz listing all of the countries of the world doesn't accept Greenland on the basis that it is part of Denmark, why does another quiz about the largest countries not count Greenland as part of Denmark? Kind of renders Greenland as terra non grata, no?

South Africa is the southernmost country in Africa. It borders Nairobi, Botswana, and Zimbabwe to the north, Mozambique to the east, the Indian Ocean is to the south and east, and the Atlantic Ocean is to the west. Lesotho and Swaziland are two tiny nations that are totally within or almost within South Africa.

South Africa than is more distorted by most maps due its being closer to the South Pole, especially relative to a country like Sudan that is so close to the Equator. SA might look bigger on your map while in fact being smaller.

Can I ask for an explanation of why overseas territories are not counted as part of the nation's land area? Bringing up the Denmark and Greenland issue, Greenland is a piece of land on Earth. Therefore it makes up part of the earth's surface. What you are asking for is the nations on Earth with the largest land area, and whether it is physically connected to the mainland of the nation that owns it or not, Greenland is still a part of Earth, and is under the control of Denmark. I just don't see how water separating the two parts should prevent it from being counted. Can someone please explain?

Greenland as part of Denmark should probably count; although there is a debate as to whether it "belongs" to Denmark, is a sovereign nation, or somewhere in between.
Not including territories is sensible in that overseas claims such as those on Antarctica are not universally accepted

Well, Greenland is not a real country. Although they have a language and permanent population. They still count as territory for Denmark.(Unfortunately, this is not a part of Denmark)So it is not a country of part of Denmark.
The end.

Sudan is still the 3rd largest country in Africa, even without the small part that is now South Sudan. So yeah, it still beats out everything except for Algeria(which is number one) and DR Congo(which is number two).

People need to learn to read directions!!
About a bajillion people have said that "Greenland is missing" or "Where is Greenland?" or some variant of those.
I mean weren't people taught to read directions in Kindergarten, with that assignment where if you didn't follow the first direction: Do not do any of this, you would get everything wrong?

STILL, it is an important skill in life. Imagine if you forgot to read your boss's instructions on a job he gave you.You might do something wrong, get fired, go broke, starve, and die. All because you forgot to read two sentences of directions.

Wikipedia has a sortable table of countries by area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_area
You can see that when the list is sorted descending using only land area that China is larger than both Canada and the US, but of course if you sort by total area, the list changes substantially.
It should also be noted that if Greenland is technically considered a part of the kingdom of Denmark, which would make it 2.16 million sq. km, just bigger than Saudi Arabia.
And Antarctica, is the second largest 'landmass' after Russia, but it is claimed by several countries.

Greenland should definitely be included. If overseas territories don't count, you're effectively excluding any landmass from the quiz that isn't its own sovereign state and/or has water between it and the country of which it is a part. If you're doing a quiz about the entire world, rather then just a part of it, then a sizeable part of the world's landmass such as Greenland should count one way or the other: it should either count in its own right or else it should count as part of Denmark.

I completely agree! I spent so much time trying different spellings of both Greenland and Denmark. Though if you included all landmass you would also have to include antarctica which gets a little tricky...